An aid to blind nasal intubation.
Blind nasal intubation remains an important technique in the management of the difficult airway. Many aids to this technique have been described, but unfortunately, these often require additional expense, training, and equipment. Methods that involve listening at the end of the endotracheal tube and observing moisture condensation in the tube are relatively insensitive and may expose the operator to the patient's bodily fluids. Our aim was to devise an aid to blind nasal intubation that was effective, inexpensive, simple to learn, and easy to assemble. It is essential that breath sounds can be monitored through the endotracheal tube, as it is felt that this helps to minimize retropharyngeal perforation caused by the tube abutting the posterior pharyngeal wall. We describe the use of an endotracheal tube stethoscope in conjunction with either 'inline' or 'sidestream' capnometry and present a case of successful nasotracheal intubation using this device. The total cost of this aid is less than $10 Australian.
Harris
R D
RD
Department of Emergency Medicine, Royal North Shore Hospital, St. Leonards, New South Wales, Australia.
Gillett
M J
MJ
Joseph
A P
AP
Vinen
J D
JD
D000063:Accidents, Traffic; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital; D004867:Equipment Design; D006801:Humans; D007442:Intubation, Intratracheal / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009666:Nose; D012128:Respiratory Distress Syndrome / Q000628:therapy*